Tabula Rasa [Ather City 3] Main Game
page 4

Vinyl
I summon my phoenix and hold her in my hands. “Sure, I love competitions!” I start petting my phoenix, “hear that Philomena, we’re going to enter a competition today!” I whisper in the bird’s ear. “So, when does this competition start?”

It’d been a good 20 minutes since I started walking, but these woods seemed to stretch on forever. Every now and then there’d be a car or two passing by, breaking the silence which seemed to inevitably accompany me as I went along.
“Don’t move, missy.” The sudden voice caught me off guard, but I obeyed the command and froze on the spot.
“Alright, let me see your hands.”
Once again I obeyed, and brought them out to either side.
“Good. Slowly drop your backpack and move back towards the sound of my voice.” Shit. Now they’re gonna question me and probably hold me there the rest of the day, I thought as I went through the motions, followed by the feel of handcuffs around my wrists.
“This is 2-2-6, I’ve got the girl,” the officer spoke into the radio as he tightened a grip on my arm, then reached down and picked up my bag.“Roger that, I’ll come around to your intersection.”
“Let’s go to the corner, there’ll be another unit there picking us up momentarily.”
“Okay,” I whispered, and looked down at my feet as we started walking.

Jon
I sit, head bowed down in silence. I was sitting in church, yes it seemed strange; I wasn’t the least bit religious, but business is business. I observed the Preacher, he seemed to be observing his audience, paranoid. There’s a reason I’m here and he knows is, at least now he won’t be confused. Although it’s far away, I notice a tattoo on the organists’ arm, it appeared to be the outline of a howling wolf; Mercenary. I must admit, they are pretty good, but I’m better. When the sermon ends I don’t move, I stay like that for a while, I can hear the Preacher whisper to his employee, more than likely talking about removing me from the premises. The Mercenary walks over to me, “Excuse me sir, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” The icy cold stare he gives me in a vain attempt to intimidate assures me he is a Mercenary. I look up at him confused, pretending to have zoned-out or something like that. I give him an apologetic smile, “My apologies.” I say as I begin to stand, he seemed surprised at my height, the way I sit makes me look much shorter than I am.

I turn around and begin walking towards the door, waiting for the Mercenary to turn his back, when he does I strike. I spin around and charge at him, before he can react my hands are wrapped around his head, with a vicious twist and a sickening crack the Mercenary is no more. The noise of the break alerts the Preacher and he looks at me in horror. I slowly walk towards him, leaving the body at me feet. He grabs a cross on his neck and begin silently praying. As I draw closer his praying grow frantic. I stop right in front of him, letting the fact that no god will save him sink in. “Do it, Demon” He demands. I still wait silently, he stands up. “Do it you stupid motherfu-.” His words are stopped but my knife, entering his chin, skewering his tongue, hitting his brain and protruding from the top of his skull.

I quickly yank the blade from his head and push him away from me to prevent any blood from dripping on me, he lands in the holy water, tainting it with with that man’s life blood, He finally slumps over. I kneel over him and pick up his cross with my knife, yanking it off as a souvenir. I wipe my knife off oh his suit and flee the scene.

I walk through my door, pitch black house, like always. My house is far from clean, my room looks like a Teenager’s, clothes strewn everywhere. Also I didn’t eat the healthiest, fridge filled with pizza pockets and Hungry Men. I flick on one light on my living room and see an envelope sitting at the top of the mess. “Seen it on the news, good work.” I smile, but it disappears when I pick it up and it’s empty. “Looking for this” I hear a voice and spin around, startled. Then I seen her, her silhouette. She was holding something in her hands, my reward for the kill, it was good money and I needed it. Then a slight flash of flames disintegrates the money, and for a second I can see the disappointed look on her face.

She then steps into the light, her crimson hair glows in the light, her hair was tied back into a ponytail with a black streak running down. Her piercing light brown eyes stared at me, not with hate, but with pity. I wasn’t in the best state, there were boxes of food everywhere and I could see she was disgusted. “I needed that money, sister” I say, extremely annoyed, she’s never gone this far before. I collapse on the couch, worn out from the day. She was leaning over the coffee table now, “No, you need to come back, does family mean anything to you?” It does, but I can’t go back, my brother, Zak, wants me dead.
“Why, so Zak can strangle me?” She knew I was right, there’s no way our parents can keep us both alive. I hate to admit it, but I’m afraid of him, I’d be afraid of my sister too, but she wouldn’t hurt me, she’s not violent at all. She burnt me one time and she still feels bad about it.

“Please brother, you know I can’t stand being there with him.” She pleads. Zak was a bit of a prick, very volatile, he would always instigate fights with me when I was there. I just shake my head, I have forsaken my parents and my brother had hated me for it. I actually wanted to go back, life was so much easier, but my brother prevented that. My parents might forgive me, they could see I was just rebellious and if I was sincere, I’m sure they would let me back. “Sorry Lita, but I can’t go back.” She just frowns. “I miss you” She says sadly. I just laugh, that was always her last resort. Even she laughs this time. “Well, see you later brother.” When she leaves, I collapse back and almost instantly fall asleep.

“Lead the way” I say to the dog. We stroll around the city, observing it’s different buildings and attractions. Finally we reach a self-defence equipment store.

As I enter the store, the clerk’s eyes stare at my bunny ears, and then look away. He knows not to comment and ruin a deal.

“I’d like a sword, please. Steel. I’d also like a pistol, and a bullet vest. Here, take my old equipment. Here is my weapons license” I say, flashing it to him. I hand him the money needed. I put on the vest under my shirt, and put the gun in a holster and the sword in a sheath on my back.

“Gotta love these rural areas” I say to Vynil as I exit the store. “Lot’s O’ weapons, and no hunting laws.”

Vinyl
“I’d like a couple flintlock pistols, six is a nice number, oh and a dagger, steel please.” The hell hound, which kind of freaks the cashier out, runs to me with a bag of money. I count the money and hand it over to the cashier. While counting the money the cashier sees my weapons license. I put the flintlocks into the gun straps and talk to Jacob, “Yup, hey want to catch something to eat?”

After hitting the Autoroute for another 5 hours I enter the next town along, named Vizeron. I immediately notice the difference in atmosphere, the town is shut down. It’s like a dark shadow was crawling over the buildings and forcing all life out of the streets. I decide to skip the ghostly town, although it is the last place before the long rode past paris to the channel I instantly get the feeling I shouldn’t be there, a chill crept down my spine as I even passed the first road sign.

No matter. I leave the old town in my dust and decide to push on until at least dusk. I start my journey towards Calais.

He keeps running hearing the barking of dogs behind him. “damn now they brought dogs.” He turns around and sees about ten dogs rushing up the hill after him, barking furiously. Jason keeps running until he spots a small cave in the side of the hill. He dives into the hole just as the dogs reach him. The dogs start to dig the cave out. Jason stabs a dog in the head with his knife killing it. He stabs another and another until the last one which he misses and stabs in the front paw. He grabs the other dog carcasses and crawls out of the cave. He runs for his life towards the top of the hill. He reaches the top and he can see for miles. “helluva chase. Whew.”

My dear beloved adoptive father swings at me, with enough strength to shatter a person’s jaws. I narrowly avoid the blow, and attempts to strike him from below but he, being the seasoned fighter he is, blocks it with ease. Going with the flow, he twists my arm to try and snap it, only to be stopped by my knee hitting his stomach. I win, old man, I grin mentally as I move in to deliver the blow that will end this little sparring session.

I suddenly feel a little prickling sensation at the back of my mind. Then my fist hits nothing but air, as the illusion quickly dissipates.

“What the hell?!” I growl out in annoyance. “You said no magic, old man!”

“You cannot survive the Apocalypse by obeying all the rules, Lucretius,” the voice of my surrogate father, Mephistine D. Fausten, seems to come from multiple directions at once. Five clones of him suddenly appear out of nowhere to tackle me at the same time.

“You really are getting senile,” I say through gritted teeth and shake my head in disbelief. “Fine father, two can play this game!”

Snarling, I unleash an omnidirectional wave of crushing telekinetic force to push back the clones. And of course that does not work, passing through them as though they are not there. But the feelings of their bodies and fists bashing against me are real enough. Hissing in annoyance, I allow a wave of healing white light wash over me, curing myself of the pains and sores I accumulated throughout this sparring match that is quickly turning into a magical duel. I focus intensely on my own consciousness, and quickly manage to locate the telepathic hallucinatory spell Meph has placed in my mind. With an effort of will and mental magic I push his presence out, and watch as all five clones disappear instantly. The wizened old man is standing a few meters away to my right.

“There you are,” I growl and launch a bolt of telekinetic force at him. And as usual, it passes harmlessly through him once again. But this time, the illusory image becomes distorted, as though the magic making up its body is disrupted. I clench my teeth in annoyance. That is an actual illusion this time, not a hallucination induced by Meph’s telepathic influence; but the worst part is that there is no way I can tell the two spells apart. I swear, I will be quite aggravated if it turns out that Mephistine has an intangibility spell as well. But luckily he is no physical mage, so at least that possibility is ruled out.

The old man raises his and and aims it at me. I instinctively focus telekinetic force into a solid wall, not just facing one direction but curling around me like a cylinder. He must have been trying to shoot an invisible magical blast designed to inflict the illusory sensation of extreme pain. As that is an actual illusion and not a hallucination solely in my mind, it is a real physical entity and can thus be blocked. But I cannot be sure that he is actually attacking from that direction, since that is simply an illusion, and the real Mephistine is likely camouflaging himself with another illusory image, attacking from another direction altogether. I release another omnidirectional wave of force, creating ripples and eddies in the air, but again I hit nothing; he must be outside my range entirely. I can hit further with single focused blasts, but doing so blindly is even less useful.

“What is wrong, boy?” My father mocks. “Too tired to continue?”

I scoff. It is a shame that my signature spell, the World’s Will, does not work on my father, though I suppose I should be glad; there is not enough evil in his heart for my spell to punish. Regardless, I let out the flash of brilliant white light, in an attempt to simply blind him. At the same time, I sweep outward broadly with telepathy. I am skilled in mental defense though not so much in attack, but that is not my purpose. As soon as my mind locates Mephistine’s, seeing through all of his illusions, I throw a ball of compressed telekinetic force that pushes him at least ten meters into the distance and nearly snaps his ribs.

“By catch do you mean literally catch? It’s a bit too late for that, and no point when we are inside this city. Let’s find an exotic restaurant, and then an inn, and let’s prepare for the tournament tomorrow, perhaps hunting too.”

As they begin searching, they find a restaurant called ‘Mama Tin’s cafe’. “Perfect”, Jacob says as he goes in.

The people inside are even weirder than Jacob. People filled with tattoos, carrying so many knives they look like porcupines. Some people had hair shaped like the Earth, with the right colors and patterns.

“Welcome to Mama Tin’s Cafe, What d’ya want to order?” Says the waiter.

“I’d like a platter of stork ankles, an old cellar door, a possum spine, and a Human foot.”

“I’d like meat soup, a cheese pastry, a steak, and then something with chocolate.” Jacob orders.

“So, let’s make the phoenix your main show. You need to start out with something fancy, perhaps the phoenix with a lot of flames running around you two, for the show-off round. Then you need to practice dueling, so that you can subdue the opponent without killing him, that’s against the rules. Do you know any other spells?”

Richard
I reach Jimmy’s Car Part Emporium. This is the place. I head inside. Jimmy greets me. “Lovely weather outside.” He says.
“Yes, but I always carry an umbrella.” I reply. He pulls a gearstick on the wall and a sliding panel reveals a corridor. I walk inside, and Jimmy goes with me. He hits a button and the panel closes.
“I heard the news.” He says. Who didn’t?
“Yeah, but Eddie’s on the case. Don’t worry about it.” I respond.
“Plus it’ll be a nice story to tell everyone else.”
“Yeah. Bonus points for screwin’ over Ray.”
“Finally. He wouldn’t even play poker with us.”
“What do you expect? We’re all thieves, cheats and conmen in here.” We reach the backroom. I’m greeted by the sight of Vito, Michael and Sonny playing poker, smoking cigars and watching TV. I sit down with them, waiting for the next round to start while keeping one eye on the TV, waiting for the news.

Change of plan, according to a man I met at the services there is an airport in the nearby city.

Looks like I’m going back to the Ghost Town. Of course I was just being superstitious…

I enter the town again, power sliding to a stop and dismounting, then I look at the strange scene before me, almost a surreal scene. The streets are still empty, but this time certain houses look darker than they should. When I look closer I see burn marks around the windows. I pull out my leatherman and start working on removing the shutters on the downstairs window, then I give up and kick it in. A thick layer of ash pours out from the cavelike room and covers my coat in mucky soot. A vile stench hits me in the face. I see lumps in the middle of a burned room. Lumps with arms.

I quickly turn away and vomit, I then stumble away from the building and hit the ground with tears streaming from my face. I lay there for a moment or two and gather myself, then I get back on my bike and head out of town again. I need some guns now. I’m not going to run any more.

After hitting the Autoroute a bit longer I arrive at an old family friend’s place, the man who makes hunting rifles for our family. I try to rinse the ash off of my coat before I go in, but he is already coming around the side of the house to greet me.

“Shelly, how long has it been, just under a month? You’re looking unwell, why not stay the night here?” His gentle smile is nostalgic, and makes me a little happier, but I have to stay focused.

“I need a weapon, a rifle would be good.” I put my hand on my waist and feel my silver-inlaid revolver from my brother John. “And ammo for a revolver, .38 S&W special would be better, but if you have them just .357 cal magnum.”

His smile had disappeared. “I thought you had ammunition from last month young lady, and anyway your father-”

“Don’t call me lady! Anyway we had high demand over there, so I had to give mine to some guests. I just need some for myself and that will be it.” I try and avoid his probing glances.

“So whats with the state of you… You aren’t getting into any troublesome business are you?”

“No.”

“Well I trust you. Just let me go get them from out back. I have the special rounds and magnum so you can take whichever.” He goes off back behind his house again and into his warehouse, shouting at some random worker to fetch him the stuff. I take this chance to sit down and have a look at the stone. It glitters against the wall, brighter than before and slowly pulsates against my skin. The glow is warm but fierce and the stone feels like it’s pulling ever so slightly west, the same as before. So I wasn’t mistaken, this stone is different.

Suddenly he appears again with the equipment and a stow the stone into my coat before I but it on. “What was that you had? It was pretty.”

“Just some rock I bought. So can I have the weapon?” I didn’t want to seem to eager but I couldn’t help but rush.

“Sure, don’t use up all my ammo this time, you hear?” He chuckled a little and sighs. “I have a feeling I wont see you for a while so just take it and go.”

I wave at him as I sling the bag over my back and hit the road once again, but this time I go towards the nearest village to my house again. Even that thick armour can’t take a rifle round in the head. I hope.

Blue electricity dances around my fingers, and focuses into an intense bolt to strike my opponent squarely in the chest. He does not dodge, perhaps because he does not need to; my spell appears to have done not much other than blackening the surface of his stone skin.

“Agh!” My opponent growls and winces. What is his name again? I forget. I care not to remember the names of these second-rate challengers. “That hurt, dammit!”

I frown. My lightning spell should have inflicted much more than a simple “that hurt, dammit”. Similarly, my fire stream and razor wind spells both failed to inflict any noticeable damage against his stone skin.

“Heh,” my opponent sneers, “quit playing around, princess, and show us your ultimate spell!” That elicits a wave of cheers from our audience, our fellow students and instructors at Primus Magicus de Britannia, i.e. the First Magic of Britain, or, as some students call affectionately, Hogwarts. “Otherwise, I’ll snap your frail little body like a twig!” He begins to walk toward me, slowly.

My lips curl in annoyance; this fool does not deserve to see my Aqua Regina. However… most of my elemental spells are failing me at the moment, unable to penetrate my opponent’s thick reinforced skin. Sometimes I wonder if I spread myself too thin, learning magic from all four cardinal elements; despite my talent I can still only utilize the more basic offensive spells in each. However, unlike what most people think, I actually do specialize; many of the more complex Water spells are fairly easy to me. Although I do not think freezing this brute will help much…

“Fine, have it your way!” My opponent snarls; he must be thinking that I am looking down at him. “Your winning streak ends today, Sapphire Princess!” And he charges at me.

True, I am not able to penetrate his stone skin. But do I truly need to?

I look at my opponent, and smile. Evidently, he is confident that he can simply charge and bash through whatever I throw at him. A grave mistake. Gathering a large amount of mana, I release it with a burst of Earth magic, conjuring a large spiked sphere of some blue marble-like stone, at least twice my body width, slamming against my opponent as he charges headlong into my spell. Admittedly not a very ladylike spell, but effective nevertheless. A sickening crunch. Of course, there are healers to mend all our injuries afterward, which is why magical combat tournaments like these are held in the academy at all. I feel a slight twinge of remorse, but remind myself that I would have suffered similar injuries had I not fought back.

“Ugh…” My opponent groans in pain. Seems like he is not so resistant to large amounts of blunt force. He tries to stand, tries to lift the heavy spiked blue boulder from himself, with no avail. “I… I yield…” He finally speaks.

“And the winner is Evelyn Walker! Congratulations!” A magically enhanced voice resonates throughout the arena. With a wave of my hand the conjured boulder dissipates into raw mana, as I turn back to join my admirers in the crowd.

Yes, admirers. Sadly, that is all they are. I would gladly trade away all their feverish cheering for even a single real friend, but I was never able to do so for all eighteen years of my life. As I pretend to smile and talk to my admirers and generally be happy, the empty feeling only becomes worse. And…

It’s rather ironic, really. Students, teachers, the headmaster, Mother… Everyone showers me with love and praise. Except Father. Regardless of what I achieve, what academic subjects I excel in, what complex and powerful spell I master, what opponent I defeat, I am never good enough for Father. No matter how he pushes me to be the best of the best of the best, I will never be good enough.

The reason is simple. I am a girl, his single child. He will never have the opportunity to pass on his family name.

“Something wrong, Eve?” A teacher asks.

“Oh, no, it’s nothing,” I beam as I walk with them back to the main academy building.

Vinyl
After I gulp down the jello I talk, “Well, my phoenix kniws many tricks, such as playing dead, I could also make quite the light show. For taking someone down without kill him, I could set him on fire then put the fire out before any real damage happen right?”

[Goddammit, I made a post then accidentally deleted it. Posting again:]

Jacob

The waitress takes away my empty bowl and replaces it with a large cheese pastry. She also opens up Vynil’s metal coat over his meal to reveal a large layer of goat meat on the cube. “Enjoy” She says as she returns to the kitchen.

“Can the Phoenix make you fly using magic or fire? That would help. As for non-lasting damage, I would suggest burning their shirt or pants to prove that you could kill them. But be polite about it” Jacob chuckles.

Richard
And I’ve already lost 50 bucks in one round. I should know better than to keep playing with these guys, but it’s far too fun watching everybody try to out-cheat each other. Finally, the news comes on. “Everybody shush, this could be good.”
“Reports are coming that the ‘master theif’ Richard Darkoz may not be a criminal after all. After researching the area, it seems that fingerprints were found on the officer’s jacket belonging to another criminal. They appear to be searching for a ‘Ray Guavero’, who only completed a prison sentence two years ago. Some say that he may have been stealing his image to avoid being caught. Also in the news this week, the number of cats stuck up trees has risen 67% in the last five years.” The news bulletin makes me feel relieved. Not the cat thing, obviously, but the thing on Ray. Seems I’m a free man again.

As I hit the village near I once lived again for the last time, it was emptier than last time I saw it. This time there were the guys in armour but no townspeople. Perfect. I drive the bike past a couple, pointing the rifle towards them like a great joust and fired off two rounds, knocking two of the cold-suits off thier feet and piercing thier necks. I turn the corner and see one of the vehicles, but it’s too late. The cannon thuds into the ground beneath my bike, blasting me off sideways. My silver revolver slides away, but I scrabble forwards to grab it, and roll into an alleyway. I begin loading the S&W .38 specials into it and wait for the men to appear. When one does I pop a cap in his head and roll back out again, praying one last time and lining up a shot with the gun.

My heart beat slows to a stop with time itself as I see the cannon on top of the vehicle slowly turning towards me. I wait until the last moment before it fires and shoot directly down the barrel. the cannon’s round explodes inside the barrel, demolishing the vehicle and resulting in an explosion that took out some nearby fencing. The man in the alleyway I shot before was squirming for his gun. Perfect.

I shoot his arm and then put the gun against his head. “Where are you from?! Huh! WHERE?!”

“I… I-” He coughs blood over his visor. “We… are from… The Lost Gods Choir…” I shoot the soldier in the head for good measure and stand up, then realise I have no idea what or where he was talking about, but unfortunately that was the last of the cold-suits in the place. I have a look around for more but the place is empty. I have nothing to go on now, so I retrieve my tipped bike and hit the road once again.

Vinyl
I look at the goat meat and smile, “My favorite!” I start chowing down, after a couple fork fulls I clear my throat and speak, “Well Philomena is really strong, she can pick me up and fly me. However I use my creature to attack, I can tell them not to kill them, but if they want to scorch their face off, they will, most of my creatures could easily kill me.”

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